[Review] The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

A near-perfect blend between the old and the new 

Echoes of the Wisdom came out of nowhere when it was first announced. What's even crazier is that it was stated to come not long after its suprise announcement. I was not ready for a brand new Zelda game as I thought at most we would get a remake of the Oracle games or a port of the HD games. From the first time I saw this game, I really liked what I saw. Every trailer after that got me more and more excited to finally get my hands on the game. I got this game on release (September 26th) and have been playing it since. I have now finished the main story and thus am ready to give my thoughts on it. How did it turn out in the end? Well... I'll break it down in my review below.

~ Positives ~

Great dungeons - BOTW and TOTK suffered a bit in the dungeon department due to how open they were and the options available. Even though this game still has many options the dungeons manage to work very similarly to the classic styled dungeons. This is mostly thanks to doors needing keys and the dungeons in general being more linear. Every dungeon had a very distinct theme and while they did in TOTK all the dungeons followed a similar way to advance, get x amount of terminals or something like that, in contrast, every dungeon in this game felt distinct with the dungeon's progression. The music for each dungeon is so good too, I found myself listening to them outside of the game frequently in the time since encountering them for the first time. The dungeon puzzles and bosses are also very good and, on the harder difficulty I played on at least, provided some decent challenge. 

Creative and fun gameplay - Just like TOTK this game allows for a lot of creativity, lending its way to being very fun. The main mechanic of the game, echoes, allows you to play and solve puzzles your way, though there are also quite a few times when you have to use specific echoes and I like that balance. The ability that allows you to turn into Link for a few moments is a nice thing for people who miss the more action-style gameplay and it's just a cool form in general. It's great how you get different upgrades for this form as you progress too. I didnt use the automatons during the main game, but found them to be a good alternative to some of the echoes, generally being stronger than them. The final ability, called bind, added more to certain puzzles in the game. It is more restricted than TOTK ultrahand but I don't think that's a problem really. The reverse bind is also very neat and has some cool ways to be used. The return of heart pieces should not be downplayed. BOTW and TOTK had shrines to house what was basically the same thing. However, I feel having them scattered around the world with many different ways to come across them is so much more fun and adds more variety. This game generally feels very rewarding, for example, clearing the rifts around Hyrule not only powers up tri but also clears the area which can reveal other things.

Charming world - The game feels very lived in. The little stories going on between the different people of Hyrule are great world builders. Every location feels very distinct and looks very nice visually. Having all the races like the Dekus, Gorons, sea and river Zora, Gerudos and Hylians adds a lot of variety. It's also nice to see some of these again like the Dekus, which we haven't seen since Majoras Mask. The world is quite big too, but at the same time feels smaller as it is more compact and filled out. There is no feeling here of immense empty space, which is great.  

Simple yet effective narrative - This game won't make you scratch your head or be in need of loads of questions to be answered. It's a very easy to digest narrative and I like that about it. Even with that, there are some great moments that I wanted to watch again. The addition of Null into the series lore is cool and I think it serves as the main antagonist very well. Each area also has a self-contained story with a whole arc. All of these were really well done and even tackled some more deeper ideas. My favouirte story being from the Hebra portion of the game. I also want to mention, that I really like how much Link is spoken about in this game. It's as if he went on a whole adventure just before this game which is kind of what we see at the start of the game when he confronts Ganon, sword and shield in hand. Seeing how the different people interact with Zelda was something that was so cool to see.

~ Negatives ~

Performance - Just like the Links Awakening Remake, sadly this game suffers from framerate issues. This was expected especially with what the game aims to do but it would have been nice for it to have been smoother. Dungeons and caves are fine however the overworld can dip quite a bit. It's not unplayable by any means but it can be quite annoying when it does happen.

UX - Just like TOTK this game suffers from how many options it has for one of its main mechanics due to there being no convenient way to access ones you want. The echoes have the same scrolling menu as seen in TOTK which can get quite tedouis to navigate to what you want everytime. There are some basic sort options which help a little but its better to just go into the full menu and manually select the one you want from a grid list. Its not a huge problem just like it wasnt in TOTK but it could be so easily fixed with a favourites button or something and I thought they would have learnt thier lesson from TOTK but I guess maybe next time. 

~ Conclusion ~

To conclude, The Legend of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom is a absolutely wonderful game. While it has some minor issues there is so many good things about the game otherwise. It near perfectly marries the older style Zelda games and the newer style Zelda games. It was also so cool to finally be able to play as Zelda herself. I would easily recommend this game to Zelda fans and action adventure game fans alike. I can't wait to see whats next from the Zelda team. 

Total Hours Played: 40

Score: 9/10

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